Laurence Sterne Quotes

As far as my observation has reached, and the circle of it is by no means, a narrow one — an hard heart is always a cowardly heart. — Generosity and courage are associate virtues; and the character which possesses the former, must, in the nature of mental arrangements, be adorned with the latter. If I perceive a man to be capable of doing a mean action, — if I see him imperious and tyrannical; if he takes advantage of the weak to oppress, or of the poor to grind, or of the downcast to insult, — or is continually on the hunt after excuses not to do what he ought, — I determine such a man, though he may have fought fifty duels, to be a coward. — It is by no means a proof that a man is brave because he does not refuse to fight; — for we all know that cowards have fought, nay, — that cowards have conquered, — but a coward never performed a generous or a noble action: — and thou hast my authority to say, — and thou mightest find a worse, that a hard-hearted character never was a brave one. I say, thou mayst justly call such a man a coward, — and, if he should be spirited into a resentment of thy words — fear him not. — Tristram shall brighten his armour, and scour the rust from off his spear, and aid thee in the combat.

Opinion, my dear fellow, somehow or other, rules all mankind; and not like a kind master, or, which would be more congenial, a gentle mistress, but like a tyrant, whose wish is power, and whose gratification is servility. — Opinion leads us by the ears, the eyes, — and, I had almost said, by the nose. It warps our understandings, confounds our judgments, dissipates experience and turns our passions to its purpose. In short, it becomes the governess of our lives, and usurps the place of reason, which it has kicked out of office. — This is among the strange truths which cannot be explained but by that mortifying description which time will display to your experience hereafter, with ten times the credit that would accompany any present endeavours of mine to the same purpose... A mistress, with all her arts and fascinations, may, in time, be got rid of; but opinion, once rooted, becomes a part of ourselves — it lives and dies with us.

But this is his way; it is the language of his character; and, though one might wish it to be otherwise, yet I cannot tell what right any of us have to pass a severe sentence upon it, for no other reason in the world, but because our own failings are of a different complexion. And so much for all that.

Every time a man smiles,—but much more so, when he laughs, that it adds something to this Fragment of life.

[T]he worst of human maladies is poverty — though that is a second lye — for poverty of spirit is worse than poverty of purse, by ten thousand per cent.

Dear Sensibility! source inexhausted of all that’s precious in our joys, or costly in our sorrows! thou chainest thy martyr down upon his bed of straw—and ’tis thou who lift’st him up to Heaven!—Eternal Fountain of our feelings!

God tempers the wind, said Maria, to the shorn lamb.

I am positive I have a soul; nor can all the books with which materialists have pester’d the world ever convince me to the contrary.

We get forwards in the world not so much by doing services, as receiving them: you take a withering twig, and put it in the ground; and then you water it, because you have planted it.

If Nature has so wove her web of kindness, that some threads of love and desire are entangled with the piece,—must the whole web be rent in drawing them out?—Whip me such stoics, great Governor of Nature! said I to myself:—wherever thy providence shall place me for the trials of my virtue;—whatever is my danger,—whatever is my situation,—let me feel the movements which rise out of it, and which belong to me as a man,—and, if I govern them as a good one, I will trust the issues to thy justice; for thou hast made us, and not we ourselves.

The English, like ancient medals, kept more apart, and passing but few people’s hands, preserve the first sharpnesses which the fine hand of Nature has given them;—they are not so pleasant to feel,—but in return the legend is so visible, that at the first look you see whose image and superscription they bear.

A man who laughs will never be dangerous.

Un homme qui rit, said the duke, ne sera jamais dangereux.

Sweet pliability of man’s spirit, that can at once surrender itself to illusions, which cheat expectation and sorrow of their weary moments!

’Tis a quiet journey of the heart in pursuit of Nature, and those affections which arise out of her, which make us love each other,—and the world, better than we do.